Cold Open

It’s 1363, somewhere in Khorasan, a territory in what is now southwest Afghanistan.

Timur, a 27-year-old warrior, crouches behind a boulder. He glances to his side, making sure that the two men with him are also out of sight. They’re about to launch a surprise attack—but Timur's intended targets today aren’t other soldiers. They’re sheep.

A hundred yards away, a flock grazes on the short stubble grass. Sheep rustling isn’t how Timur wants to make ends meet. He can trace his ancestry back to the founder of the Mongol Empire, Genghis Khan. But Genghis died more than a century ago, and his realm fragmented after his death. It’s now controlled by dozens of warlords, and distant relatives of the khan like Timur must survive in any way they can.

Keeping his eyes on the sheep, Timur gives his men a prearranged signal. The three rise in a low crouch and make their way toward the unsuspecting animals.

But Timur's only covered half the distance when there’s a shout from behind him, and the startled sheep bolt. Timur whips his head around to see who made the noise. It’s a shepherd running toward them, waving his hands.

Timur angrily pulls his sword from his belt, determined to punish the shepherd for disturbing his hunt. But before he can take more than a few steps, the shepherd drops to one knee and frees a bow from around his shoulders…

With a practiced hand, he quickly notches and releases an arrow. 

It shoots past Timur's head. And only seconds later, another thumps into the ground near his feet. The shepherd is obviously a skilled archer, so Timur signals his companions to retreat.

But as he turns his back, Timur feels an excruciating pain in his hand. An arrow has hit him. Timur grits his teeth and starts to run.

But another arrow buries itself in the flesh by his hip. Timur sinks to one knee, breathing hard. The pain is excruciating, but he’s determined not to lose his life to a lowly shepherd. He forces himself up and hobbles away as quickly as he can, blood coursing down his leg, and his face burning with humiliation.

This encounter with the bow-wielding shepherd will leave Timur with a lifelong limp. That will see him become known as Timur the Lame, or Tamerlane to some. But Timur will overcome this setback, and his encounter with the shepherd will be one of the last times he’s ever defeated by a foe. Over the next four decades, Timur will rise to become a powerful warlord. City after city will fall to his armies. But none of his conquests will be more famous or more bloody than his sack of Delhi on December 17th, 1398.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is December 17th, 1398: Emperor Timur Captures Delhi.

Act One

It’s 1370 in Balkh, a city ruled by Mongol warlords, seven years after Timur was wounded while trying to steal sheep.

Timur is now 34 years old. Ignoring the constant ache in his leg, he stands as tall as possible, trying to look regal and powerful. Shackled before him is Timur's brother-in-law, Husayn - a rival warlord that Timur has just bested in battle.

Over the last few years, Timur has carved out a reputation as a skilled fighter and general. And as word spread of his prowess, more and more warriors flocked to his banner. Timur then married the sister of rival warlord Husayn, and for a while, the two men formed an alliance, raiding neighboring territories and carrying off the plunder together. But the two men soon fell out over the question of how to deal with their defeated enemies—Husayn favored mercy for the vanquished, but Timur thought that was just weakness. The partnership between the two warlords became increasingly strained, but outright conflict was avoided thanks to the family ties between them. A few months ago, Timur's wife died. And that freed Timur from any pretense of family loyalty. He marched his army into Husayn's territory and laid siege to the city of Balkh. Now, after two days of fierce fighting, Husayn has just surrendered. And now he kneels, begging for his life. 

He offers to give over his city unconditionally as long as Timur spares him. But Timur just spits on the ground in disgust - this is exactly the kind of weakness that Timur cannot abide. But with a dismissive gesture, Timur agrees to the deal.

The city of Balkh surrenders, and Timur's warriors stream into the gates. But as soon as they have established control, Timur goes back on his word. He gives the order for Husayn to be beheaded. Husayn protests, but Timur cuts him off with a sneer explaining that he’s sticking to the terms of their agreement precisely. He promised that he would spare Husayn. But he didn’t say anything about what his men would do.

Husayn's murder is more than just an act of cruelty. It’s a signal to others that Timur is not a man to be trifled with. Or at least that is what Timur hopes. He needs to be seen as a strong leader because he’s actually in a vulnerable position. He controls only a small region and is surrounded on all sides by other warlords, who are all wary of his growing power. If they united against him, Timur wouldn’t stand a chance. So, for Timur, going on the offense is the best form of defense.

Over the next two decades, he wages seven different military campaigns. And one by one, the neighboring warlords all fall to Timur's onslaught. And as his characteristic, Timur shows no mercy as he crushes his opponents. Every rival that stands against him is put to the sword. Every settlement is plundered. Every building is burned and civilians are slaughtered by the thousands.

Soon, Timur declares himself the head of a new empire. Because with his closest threats neutralized, Timur begins to think bigger. He’s inspired by the example of his ancestor Genghis Khan, who marched his armies from China to the gates of Europe. So, Timur turns his attention west, to the rich lands of Persia. 

By now, Timur's reputation precedes him. And in many cities, the people simply surrender without a fight in the hope of being spared. 

So as his soldiers advance, Timur sends caravans of plunder back east to his home city of Samarkand. Timur's aim is to transform Samarkand into the capital of the Islamic world, and it is Timur’s Muslim faith that decides who’ll be conquered next. 

For more than a century, the Muslim rulers of the Delhi Sultanate have controlled large parts of the Indian subcontinent. But many of their subjects are Hindu, and Timur believes the sultans have been too tolerant of them. So, he decides to take matters into his own hands.

In September 1398, Timur gathers 90,000 of his warriors and marches into India. He heads straight for the heart of the sultanate: the city of Delhi itself. A long-running civil war within the sultanate means that its forces are weak and divided, and town after town fall so that just three months after setting out, Timur's army will be at the gates of Delhi. But the sultan there won’t give up the city without a fight, and Timur will be forced to work for one of the most famous victories of his long military career. 

Act Two

It’s the morning of December 17th, 1398, outside Delhi, a few days after Timur laid siege to the city.

Now in his early sixties, Timur watches as hundreds of his soldiers dig a ditch around his army encampment. He flexes his right hand in the cool winter air. As the ruler of an empire that now covers 1.5 million square miles, Timur is one of the most powerful men on the planet. But he is still troubled by the wounds he suffered more than three decades ago. His hand is missing two fingers where the shepherd’s arrow found its mark. And that dull throb is a constant reminder to Timur of the price of failure.

A few days ago, Timur's army arrived outside the walls of Delhi.  Timur hoped that Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud would surrender without a fight, as so many of his enemies had done in the past. But the sultan decided to make a stand, so Timur deployed his troops around the city walls and prepared for battle.

Digging a ditch around his camp may seem an unusual tactic for an army based predominantly on mobile cavalry and mounted archers. But the garrison defending Delhi doesn’t just have men at its disposal. It also has a number of war elephants. They are dangerous animals, protected by chainmail and with poison coating their tusks. The deep ditch is designed to keep Timur's army safe from these beasts if they break through the lines and get as far as the encampment.

The ditch is completed just in time. While Timur is overseeing the final excavations, Delhi's main gate opens and out marches the sultan’s army and a company of war elephants, trumpeting loudly.

But as intimidating as the elephants are, Timur knows their weakness. They’re afraid of fire. So, Timur orders his soldiers to strap bales of hay to the backs of camels—and then light them ablaze. 

Timur's soldiers prod the camels toward the enemy. And as they feel the heat on their backs, the animals panic and break into a run. The war elephants trumpet even louder—but now it’s a scream of fear at the living torches racing toward them. The huge beasts turn and bolt, trampling many of the sultan’s army beneath their feet in their rush to escape the flames.

With his enemy in disarray, Timur orders his men to attack. His cavalry makes light work of picking off the fleeing troops and, by evening, it’s clear the city will soon fall. Knowing that Timur will show them no mercy, thousands of civilians flee Delhi that night. And among those who escape is Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud who abandons his wealthy capital and flees with his life.

The next day, Timur's soldiers sweep into Delhi unopposed. Over the next two weeks, they burn, pillage, and destroy everything they can get their hands on. Any citizens who are foolhardy enough to defend their possessions are slaughtered. The rest are enslaved. Corpses pile up in the streets, but Timur won’t let any of them be buried—he wants the bodies to act as a deterrent to anyone who might consider rising up against him and soon, the once magnificent city of Delhi is in ruins.

Timur orders his army back to Samarkand. But when he returns home, he has no time to rest. The western provinces of his empire have taken advantage of Timur's absence, and rebellion is brewing. Timur responds in his usual brutal manner leading another campaign into the west, cracking down on any hint of dissent and enslaving more than 60,000 people. With the rebellion crushed, Timur heads back home again, stopping off to sack the cities of Aleppo, Damascus, and Baghdad. And it's there that Timur insists that every one of his soldiers present him with the heads of two slain enemies.

The soldiers rush through the city, massacring anyone they find. And when that isn’t enough, they resort to beheading their own wives rather than risk disappointing their Emperor. 

But Timur still isn’t satisfied. If he’s going to match the achievements of his forebear Genghis Khan, then he needs to expand his empire to the east. There, the Ming Dynasty rules the vast realm of China—but Timur is confident that the Ming emperors will have no answer to his battle-hardened and fanatically loyal troops.

But Timur will never get the chance to face the Ming in battle. Instead, he’ll be confronted by a faceless foe that even he will have no answer to: old age.

Act Three

It’s February 1405 in Otrar on the eastern frontier of Timur’s empire, seven years after the sack of Delhi.

Timur lies sweating in his tent, vaguely aware of hushed voices whispering around him. A group of doctors are conferring, and from their worried expressions, Timur can tell he’s seriously ill. 

Two months ago, Timur set out from Samarkand at the head of an army of over 200,000 men. He intended to march them on a year-long expedition into the heart of Ming China and bring another ruler to his knees. But a few days ago, Timur fell ill and his aging body struggled to fight off the sickness. Timur soon had to order his army to halt and set up camp to give him a chance to recover. 

Outside his tent, a cold wind whistles. And although Timur is shivering, the doctors say he’s suffering from a fever, they need to bring his temperature down. They summon servants to bring buckets of ice and pack it around his body. But Timur soon starts shaking uncontrollably. Eventually the doctors confess that they don’t know what else to do, that this might be one fight Timur cannot win.

With what little strength he has left, Timur gathers his commanders and his wives to his bedside. In a weakened voice, he tells them that his empire should be divided up between his sons and grandsons after he dies, just as the Mongol Empire was shared out between the descendants of Genghis Khan.

And then later that evening, at around eight o’clock, Timur draws his last breath. His body is taken back to Samarkand and interred under a slab of black jade. But Samarkand is no longer the capital of a vast empire. Just as Timur decreed, his realm is dissolved upon his death, and its various territories are ruled separately by his heirs.

None of Timur's successors will ever reunite his empire, because none will ever display the necessary military talent and ruthless brutality, traits that Timur used to crush his opponents and conquer countless great cities, including Delhi, which felt the full force of Timur's terrible wrath on December 17th, 1398.

Outro

Next on History Daily. December 18th, 1972. President Richard Nixon launches the Christmas Bombing, the last major American offensive in the Vietnam War.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Rob Scragg.

Edited by Scott Reeves. Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.